Monday, June 30, 2014

YOU'RE DOING FAMILIARS ALL WRONG

a wizard and his familiar

FAMILIARS

Many
people assume that familiars are animals that a wizard has empowered
to be servants and allies. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Paladins
will tell you that familiars are demons, sent to corrupt wizards with
power. Others say that they are the ancient spirits that originally
taught mankind magic, or that familiars are spells that have slipped
away from their masters and now meddle in the affairs of wizards.

Whatever
is true, wizards obtain familiars by casting the spell known ascall
tofamiliar spirit. This is optional, and many (smart) wizards never mess around with familiars in the first place.

Once
called the familiar will appear in 1d20 hours. What sort of familiar
appears depends on where they are summoned. A frog familiar might
appear if summoned in a swamp, while calling for familiars within a
city sometimes returns a brownie or a jenkin.

a wizard and his familiar

The
wizard must then bargain with
the familiar. Familiars usually want to ally themselves with
promising young savants with a bright destiny. Every familiar wants
to be the voice in the ear of an archmage. They want power,
indirectly. After bargaining, the hopeful wizard makes a Charisma
check with the following modifiers.

If
the wizard is boring, meek, or unambitious, there will be a -1/-2
penalty.

If
the wizard is power-hungry or promises the familiar great things,
there will be a +1/+2 bonus.

The
wizard can sacrifice things to appease the familiar. First,
sacrifice as much stuff as you want, then make a Wisdom check.
Success means that you get a +1 bonus for every 100sp of stuff
sacrificed this way (gold thrown in the well, holy books burned,
gemstones turned to dirt,etc). Failure means that you have
misjudged the familiar's desires and your sacrifices will count for
nothing.

If
the wizard succeeds on the Charisma check, the familiar agrees to join
you in a mutually-binding, magical contract. If the check is
failed, roll on the Breach of Covenent Table below, and that
familiar will never again appear to you. In fact, no familiar will
ever appear to you at this location. You've been 86'd.

a wizard and his familiar

Once
a familiar has agreed to work with you, it can be summoned
to your side. But familiars are fickle. Whenever you attempt to
summon your familiar, make a Charisma check. Success means that the
familiar arrives immediately. Otherwise it arrives in 1d20 hours.
If you have annoyed your familiar, you automatically fail this Test,
while familiars that are extremely pleased will always arrive
promptly.

Your familiar doesn't really exist before it's summoned. It crawls out of your hair, or scrabbles out of the wall. And leaves in similarly dramatic fashion. It can only be hurt by magic.

Familiars
can use the detect magic
spell at will, and will even share the results with you if you ask
nicely (this is so trivial that it doesn't demand a favor in
exchange). More importantly, familiars can perform
services, but never more than
1/day. However, for every service it performs, you owe a favor.

1.
Familiars can teach you spells, which you can then add to your
spellbook immediately and at no cost. Roll on the random spell table to see which one. The familiar will only perform this service
1d4+1 times before it refuses. It cannot teach you what you cannot
understand. The first spell is free.

2.
Familiars can give you an extra spell slot of your highest level spell for one day.

3.
Familiars can give you +2 to your caster level for one day.

4.
Familiars can save you from a violent death—but only once, and only
if the familiar answers your summons immediately (i.e. you make that Charisma check mentioned above). The details are
best left to the DM, but the familiar might crawl inside your mouth
and give you the strength you need to overcome the situation, or you
might just walk back into the campsite later on like nothing
happened. Regardless, once your familiar has performed this favor
for you, you become bound to it body and soul. You will never be rid
of it. You owe it a favor every time you level up, or every time you
gain a negative level.

5.
Pretty much anything else you can dream up. Want it to scout out the
next room? No problem. That counts as a favor, though.

Each favor is always
something that the familiar can call in immediately, or at a later
date. It's up to the DM, but the most appropriate favors are ones
that are appropriate to the familiar's goals (see below) and
potentially destrucive. Forgetting to return the
spellbook to the wizard who has treated you kindly? Kill the silly
NPC paladin who always gets in the way? Stealing a torch from a
baby? If this seems harsh, you can roll a 1d6 or something to see how unpalatable the familiar's request is.

If
the wizard performs the favor that the familiar requests, that's the
end of it. But if the wizard refuses, that is a violation the contract
with the familiar, and deserving of a roll on the Breach of Covenant table.

As long as you can convince your familiar that you still have a chance to fulfill your destiny, it will not abandon you (although it might get grumpy). It has a contract to fulfill, after all.

To see a suggested familiar, roll on each table below, or just roll once for all four. DMs are encouraged to make up their own, and especially to tailor the appearance for the environment where the call to familiar spirit spell was first cast.

Suggested
Appearances (d8)

1.
matte black crow, flies backwards.

2.
fat weasel, sleeps constantly in your pocket or purse.

3.
swollen toad, nearby objects and surfaces become soggy.

4.
miniature woman, 2' tall with gold skin, wearing only jewelry.

5.
small pig, walks like a man, fond of eating bones and skin.

6.
white mouse, everyone gets goosebumps when it appears, speaks like a
king.

7.
brown jenkin, sort of like a large rat with human hands and face,
fond of fetching things.

12 comments:

True! But these rules allow you sidestep: figuring out your familiar's stats, how much HP it is, what it is doing every turn of combat, etc. Because it's a spirit, instead of a real animal, it can be more abstracted.

This is cool and all, and fits very nicely into a certain weird/horror aesthetic, but one of the nice things about this hobby is that - if it fits your game / your campaign / your players - there is literally no way to "do X all wrong." Does the internet really need more antagonism being used as mere reader hooks? 8^/

Alright, I can see that. It's actually pretty clear about the druids, if only because the whole concept is so silly, but here you did use the exact words that certain unnecessarily aggressive bloggers would use sincerely.